Hotel Tips and Cleanliness

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Have you ever watched travel shows that talks about how clean a hotel room actually is? Well, if you haven’t already, you might not want to! Because you might never want to stay in a hotel again!

For us, staying in a hotel is a must. It’s our second home. It’s actually technically our first home, because flight attendants are in hotels probably more than we are even in our own homes. So worrying and freaking out about hotel cleanliness is really not an option.

I recently stayed at a Holiday Inn that is pretty new; I believed it has been completely renovated. I walked into the room, and do my usual routine. Put down my suitcases, take out what I need, turn on the TV…and then stopped. The television remote was neatly wrapped in a Ziploc bag, all cute and clean! I know, the little things that we get excited about. But if you stay at hotels constantly, I imagine you would get the same reaction I did. Its was like a choir was above me and a song of hallelujah could be heard playing above.

Still don’t understand why I was so in awed of the remote control? Have you ever stopped and ponder how many people have touched that remote? Have you ever thought about all the germs, and most importantly, where their hands have been? Have you ever wonder if the remote control gets cleaned??? Yep, I think you are starting to see why I thought it was the greatest idea on earth that the remote control was neatly in a Ziploc bag. I cannot believe I have never thought of it before, but rest assured, from now on, I will have an extra Ziploc bag with me just for the remote controls in the rooms.

Another flight attendant told me that if you ever forget to bring your ziplock bag, you can also use the ice bag to wrap it in, or shower cap if they offer it.

Some other random tips and tidbits:

The old fashion coffee brewers – I wouldn’t use them if I were you…I have heard many different horror stories that people use the coffee servers for…such as soaking their underwear, washing pantyhose, yeah, underwear flavor coffee? no thanks! The new ones where you just insert a sleeve of the coffee and it brews directly into a cup – much better.

I always bring my own face towels to wash my face, only because I feel like I never know if they wash the towels good enough. Face towels are small and does not really take up space to pack, so I would much rather have my own.

Do not use the cups that they give you unless its plastic and wrap individually so you know that its new. I have heard that some hotels they do not wash the cups, they just wipe them down. Can you say ewww…I usually collect some of the plastic cups from the hotels that offers them, so that way next time I need one, I just use the one I have already packed.

Usually most hotels are pretty good about their bed sheets. However, I have been to some that I look at the bed and the sheets and I would not feel comfortable sleeping in them. So what I also have packed is something that works almost like a sleeping bag but its thin and fabric material. It also folds up small and neat in a little carry bag so can be packed in your suitcase without really adding bulk. You can search for these, there are many different kinds, and not expensive at all.

Lastly, before you use the iron to iron out the wrinkles in that nice dress shirt of yours. Have you ever thought about cleaning it? As I mentioned we live out of hotels constantly, right? Well most hotels, unfortunately, do not offer us microwaves to cook our food. Being flight attendants we usually figure out ways to do what we need with things that we can work with. I have heard many many stories of people that wrap their food up in aluminum foil and then use the iron to heat it up! Did you know that some crews have used the iron to make grill cheese sandwiches? Yeah, I didn’t know that was possible either…

I hope that this helps you a little bit the next time you have to stay in a hotel. And gave you a little insight into the little gadgets or things that we usually pack in our suitcase to make our stay a little more enjoyable, or should I say, a little bit more clean!

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Our Readers Comments

Very awakening information. Hotel, hostel and the like is a public place and we are aware that it is being used my many people from time to time. I think hotels have their own cleaning management but still we have to watch out. Actually, there was this one trip where I was bitten by lots of bugs in my bedroom and that is such a big disappointment.

Oh ,what a rude awakening I had in this hotel where I checked in last night. in some town in South Africa. After a quick shower I rushed out to try and grab some breakfast before going to the conference hall. I had left the room with all the evidence indicating that the room must be made up as I was to stay another day. I was only gone for a little under twenty minutes and I came back to my room ONLY to find that the room had already been made up and tided up as if I never slept in it . My immediate question was how possible was it for a cleaning lady to have just sneaked in a did a cleaning job so quickly, It turns out all she did was to throw the duvet cover back on the bed without any tiding up of the room and then laying out everything as if to say that the room had indeed been cleaned. Nothing much had been done except to rearrange the linen and make it look like it had been cleaned. After reading your article I am even wondering if the cup in front of me now ever saw the dawn of cleaning and unfortunately I used it last night without seriously checking that it was cleaned. I did not even rinse it as I assumed that it was clean because it was neatly put om the table ready for use.
Thanks for your eye opening write up. Travellers take note.
Hotels need to improve their cleaning act.
I guess this also confirms that the cleaning short-cuts are happening on a larger scale than we care to know. What a serious blow to the hospitality industry.